


Happy air,

by acheforhim



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, M/M, Pining, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 08:33:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18312002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acheforhim/pseuds/acheforhim
Summary: After the fall, Will aches for Hannibal.This is a prequel to TigerPrawn'sCopper. Written for the April Fool's fic swap.





	Happy air,

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TigerPrawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerPrawn/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Copper](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13006731) by [TigerPrawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerPrawn/pseuds/TigerPrawn). 



> This was written for the April Fool’s Fic Swap organized by Stratumgermanitivum!
> 
> This fic is full of pining and they don't get together in this one - read Copper to see the happy resolution. :)

_Is Hannibal in love with me?—_

**i. (a few days ago)**

They’re in the kitchen, side by side, preparing dinner. Will has taken to helping Hannibal cook whenever he can—or whenever Hannibal allows it, rather. Hannibal seems to enjoy having him there, whether he’s helping out or not, whether they have something to talk about or just stay silent in each other’s company. Will enjoys the sounds of the knife on the cutting board, the smells rising in the air with every new ingredient, the sight of Hannibal’s capable hands putting together something worthy of a feast every time he sets out to make a meal. Hannibal loves watching him, too, Will knows, but he hasn’t really said anything. He’s never _done_ anything to really show it. Will knows that Hannibal has feelings for him – Bedelia had said as much, and it’s not too hard to see it when he looks for it.

“We’ll need them chopped more finely for this dish,” Hannibal says, gesturing towards the carrots Will has cut to jagged pieces in his reverie. Will blinks down at the cutting board and hums, gathering the pieces together to work them over again.

“Like this?” he says, and he wants to wince at his teasing tone as he shows off the results to Hannibal and continues to chop the rest. He knows exactly what he’s doing, knows he wants Hannibal to compliment him—or maybe move to stand at his back and guide the blade with his own hand on Will’s, show Will how to do better with a firm touch and a whisper in his ear.

“That is perfect, yes,” Hannibal says with a mild smile, and Will has to look away.

Hannibal looks entirely too kissable.

Will doesn’t do anything about it.

**ii. (a few weeks ago)**

Hannibal rings the doorbell to summon him down. Will goes to see two men helping Hannibal unload a small piano from the back of a van. Will looks on for a minute, incredulous, before he goes back in and clears enough space in the hall for them to leave the piano there without having to go further in. Will doesn’t like having strangers in their home.

He raises an eyebrow at Hannibal as he catches his eye, but Hannibal just shakes his head with a small smile. He assures the men they’ll be able to move it to the living room by themselves and shakes their hands, paying them before he waves them goodbye. He comes back to Will, still smiling, and puts a hand on the piano as he explains:

“A local school received a generous donation for new musical instruments, so they were only too happy to get rid of this old thing.”

Will chuckles. “I assume the donation was anonymous?” he says. He knows Hannibal has missed playing, but they resisted getting anything that could be traced to them in any way. Will doubts Jack would look into school sales to find them, expecting Hannibal to get something grander.

“Indeed.”

Will nods and moves to the side of the piano. “Let’s get it to the living room.”

They do, and Hannibal spends a while making sure that it’s properly tuned. He pours Will a glass of wine, red and rich, before he sits at it, running his fingers over the keys, almost reverent. Will swallows with difficulty at the quiet happiness written on Hannibal’s face.

They should have gotten one sooner. Better yet, a harpsichord. Will knows Hannibal prefers its sound to that of the piano.

It’s almost too much when Hannibal starts playing. It’s as if he hadn’t stopped at all, as if his hands have been yearning to return to this and only this all along. For a stupid moment Will feels jealous of the keys, of the music, of anything that could captivate Hannibal so fully while Will is still in the room.

He realizes he’s squeezing the stem of the glass too hard and he leaves it on the table, gets up, leaves the room without a word. It’s incredibly rude but the music doesn’t falter, doesn’t stop to question why he went.

After that, Will can still hear music float through the house sometimes, but Hannibal doesn’t play for him again.

**iii. (a few months ago)**

Will’s about to fall asleep, or at least he hopes he is, praying for a respite from the heat that doesn’t abate even at night, when he hears the door to his bedroom crack open.

He has to stifle all his instincts in order not to move, trained to jump at any danger, but he knows it’s just Hannibal, it couldn’t be anyone else. But what is _Hannibal_ doing sneaking into his room?

An alarm starts blaring in his head, bringing back everything Hannibal has done to him, the pain, the scars he left, that’s why he’s here, of course, he’s going to hurt him again—

But Hannibal does nothing of the sort. With his eyes still closed, Will doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing, but he can hear he stays in place for a long moment, still as the windless air outside. When he does move, it’s not towards Will’s bed – Will hears the floorboards creak near the bookshelf, hears Hannibal’s clothes rustle. In the end, he can’t resist cracking an eye open. By the light streaming from the crack of the door he sees Hannibal, in his robe, peering at the small library Will has acquired during their stay here, leaning this way and that as he examines every book.

“What are you doing?” Will asks in the end.

Hannibal turns, unstartled, and directs a small apologetic smile at him. “Forgive me, Will. I seem to be missing one of my books, so I wondered if you had it here.”

“The Petrarch?” Will asks.

“Yes.”

“It’s over here,” he says and leans on his elbow to reach for his nightstand. He takes the Songbook and stretches out towards Hannibal, offering it to him.

“I could leave it with you if you’d like,” Hannibal says, and Will shakes his head.

“You clearly need it if you had to sneak into my room at night to get it,” he replies.

Hannibal chuckles. “So it seems.”

Will leans back again. “Nothing like a good love poem to chase away the nightmares,” he says, and closes his eyes shut against the embarrassment that washes over him as soon as the words leave his lips.

“Do you still have nightmares?” Hannibal asks.

“Sometimes,” Will says. Embracing the darkness of his mind hasn’t really done much to alleviate the horror of it.

“And does poetry really help?”

Will chuckles. “I don’t know. Maybe. It might be just wishful thinking.”

“Do you want me to read some for you?”

_Do I want you to read sonnets for me in the middle of the night?_

“If you want to,” Will says quietly.

Hannibal switches the lamp on his nightstand on. “Do you mind?” he asks, pointing towards the edge of Will’s bed. Will hums and shifts to make space for him, his heart fluttering.

Hannibal is so close. He could so easily reach out to touch Will. Take his hand. Ruffle his hair. He could just lie down next to him and let Will wrap around him, despite the heat, despite everything.

He doesn’t.

What he does is open the Songbook and start reading from the first sonnet. It’s a bilingual edition, so of course he reads the original Italian instead of the translation, and Will is somewhat grateful for it. He does catch the meaning of a word or a few, but it’s not enough to affect him as much as hearing the poems in their entirety would. He just focuses on the sound of Hannibal’s voice instead of the meanings and he closes his eyes, relaxing into his pillow as Hannibal reads on and on.

He sleeps a dreamless sleep.

The next day neither of them mentions it, and it doesn’t happen again, and Will aches with the disappointment of it.

**iv. (two years ago)**

Wet and cold, nearly dead, trembling as he crawls towards Hannibal to see if he is breathing. Hannibal rolls onto his back and heaves a few heavy breaths before Will even reaches him, and Will could cry with the relief of it.

He wants to sprawl on top of him, hold him, just for a minute, for a second. But when Hannibal turns his head to look at him, Will can see it in his gaze that he _knows,_ he knows Will just tried to kill them both. He saved them, but not entirely by design.

Hannibal doesn’t know how glad Will is for that, and Will doesn’t tell him. Not yet.

So they touch to keep their balance and to patch each other up, but nothing more.

**v. (earlier that same day)**

He wants Hannibal out of that jumpsuit. He wants him in his normal clothes, wants him elegant and put together and _himself._ He resists rifling through the house to find him an outfit himself, but only barely.

It’s even harder to resist reaching out to touch him, to run a hand through Hannibal’s hair, to put his hands on his shoulders and press into him. He doesn’t regret manipulating Hannibal into surrendering himself, but he’d be a fool not to realize the toll these three years must have taken on him. The loneliness. The yearning for touch. He wants to be his comfort after all of that, wants to atone. But he doesn’t. He can’t. Not yet.

They have a dragon to slay.

If they survive this, they will get to the rest of it later.

Until then, there’s this and many other times, when the question echoes in his mind:

_— **Do you ache for him?**_

_I do. I do. I do._

**Author's Note:**

> "…you linger around bright eyes whose loving sting  
> pierces me so, till I feel it and weep,  
> and I wander searching for my treasure,  
> like a creature that often shies and kicks:
> 
> now I seem to find her, now I realise  
> she’s far away, now I’m comforted, now despair,  
> now longing for her, now truly seeing her.
> 
> Happy air, remain here with your  
> living rays: and you, clear running stream,  
> why can’t I exchange my path for yours?"
> 
> —from Petrarch’s 227th sonnet of his Canzoniere, translated into English by A. S. Kline.
> 
> please consider [retweeting](https://twitter.com/ache4him/status/1114520861762043906) or [reblogging](https://acheforhim-fic.tumblr.com/post/183985563449/fic-happy-air) if you enjoyed ♥


End file.
